To be sure, all games involving dice involve a lot of luck.
My wife, Wendy, likes to say that a full moon can cause a difference, and maybe it can, but the roll of the dice is never really predictable. But sometimes, dice roll in amazing ways.
During a vacation last week, I got an incredibly clear view of that.
Growing up, my family would enjoy playing Yahtzee. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, it’s a game played with dice that resembles poker, to some extent.
The idea is pretty simple: Each player has a scorecard with many “hands” that are supposed to be achieved. During each turn, a player puts five dice in a cup, rolls them out, and keeps the ones that help form “of a kinds” or “straights.” After three rolls, the turn is complete and the player records one of numerous forms of scores – or not – until his or her scorecard is full.
Each of the “hands” is worth a different score, and some are harder to get than others. A “Yahtzee” happens when a player rolls five of a kind. It’s the hardest “hand” to get, and is therefore worth 50 points – the highest possible single-turn total.
Subsequent Yahtzees are like the Holy Grail of dice games and are worth 100 points apiece. They’re a total game-changer.
But anyone who has played much Yahtzee knows that finding the Grail ain’t normal. In fact, it’s common to record a zero in that space on your scorecard. In fact, I’d say that’s more common than writing down 50.
But then again, anything goes with dice. I’ve played games when one lucky sap gets four Yahtzees.
But I’ve never seen anything like what happened on a cool, drizzly late summer night in a small house next to Wood Creek Lake near London, Ky.
To set the scene, the weather was such that me, Wendy and the three friends who were staying with us in the little house on the lake were forced to (more like happy to) spend many hours either indoors or on the covered porch.
During the evenings, some of those hours were spent rolling Yahtzee dice. On the final evening, we had played several games and came to a point where it was time to wrap things up.
So far, the night’s rolling had been pretty standard, without very many high game totals and only Wendy enjoying much in the way of rolling Yahtzees. For the record, here’s how strange and cruel this game can be: On two separate occasions on this night, I had “zeroed out” my Yahtzee space (as I said earlier, a move not at all uncommon in the game) only to roll five-of-a-kind a turn or two later and not be able to “take a Yahtzee.”
Anyway, “when the last game” got under way, it didn’t take long for things to look very different. Someone got a Yahtzee who hadn’t during the lake house series. Then someone else got one, then Wendy got one (of course) and then – well, by the time the “and thens” were over, a whopping nine Yahtzees had spilled out of that old cup!
Nine! Sheesh, if you know this game then you know you can have several people playing and go many games without seeing one stinking Yahtzee.
But Wendy got three (!) and three people got two apiece. As you can imagine, after about the fourth Yahtzee was rolled, the yells and screams were pretty big and loud for each one up to No. 9.
And yes, one player didn’t get to partake in the five-of-a-kind flurry. But that person was just as amazed by what had just happened as everyone else. Just witnessing the dice go crazy that way was enough to get the adrenaline flowing and wipe out any potential disappointment.
But that’s Yahtzee. At least, it can be.
Doug Davison is a writer, photographer and newsroom assistant for the Houston Herald.
Email: ddavison@houstonherald.com.
